Cry Wolf

by Patricia Briggs

Series:

Alpha and Omega #2

Publisher:

Ace

Copyright:

August 2008

ISBN:

0-441-01615-4

Format:

Mass market

Pages:

310

Cry Wolf is a sequel to the novella Alpha and Omega. This was originally included in the anthology
On the Prowl, which I had no particular interest in, but it's now
available as a standalone novella if you have an ebook reader. I
recommend reading it first if you have any interest in this series; it's
not particularly expensive, and piecing together what happened in it while
reading the beginning of Cry Wolf is not particularly enjoyable.

There are some mild spoilers for Alpha and Omega here, so if you're
planning on reading the novella first, you may want to do that before
reading on.

Anna is an Omega, an extremely rare form of werewolf who does not fall
into the normal pack hierarchy. With normal werewolves, either the wolf
is dominant or is submissive, and the most dominant wolf leads the pack
and can force their will on the other pack members. Omegas are strange.
Normal pack dominance doesn't really work on them, but neither are they
dominant themselves. At the start of Cry Wolf, Anna has very
little idea what any of this means. She's been rescued from a horribly
abusive situation and is being brought to Montana by Charles, the enforcer
and son of the leader of all North American werewolves. And, apparently,
her mate, according to both of their wolf natures, but she's not entirely
sure what that means either. She doesn't have a lot of time to find out,
since the local pack is immediately threatened by a rogue werewolf and
she's pulled into both pack politics and that hunt.

Cry Wolf, despite being the first full book of the Alpha and Omega
series, is set in the same world as Briggs's Mercy Thompson series. (At a
guess, somewhere around Iron Kissed.) This is not just a vague
link within the universe, unfortunately. The characters here refer
frequently to Mercy and previous events in her series in that way that
implies the reader should have read them, without explaining fully what
happened. If, like me, you're more interested in this series than the
Mercy Thompson series (I preferred it because there are no vampires and
I'm sick of vampires), be aware that starting here will feel like starting
in the middle of a series. This will be even worse if you don't read
Alpha and Omega first, making the first section of the book feel
like constant namedropping when you don't know any of the references.

The story, otherwise, is basically hurt/comfort with a side of coming of
age. Whether you will enjoy this will depend on whether you're in the
mood for a fairly predictable story that hits those buttons. Anna is a
mess, thrown into survival mode after years of abuse and hating what she's
become. (She is, actually, somewhat less of a mess than I think she
should be given what happened to her, although Briggs has both her Omega
nature and her wolf as outs there.) Charles wants to comfort her and
isn't sure how. She misreads things, he misreads things, there's lots of
missed communication... you've probably read this story before and have a
pretty good idea how it will go. They are somewhat less stupid about
their communication problems than the typical novel of this type, but they
still don't use words very well.

The rest of the plot felt like mostly an excuse to throw Anna and Charles
together doing something external to their relationship and to give Anna a
chance to use her unique talents. It takes a bit to get going, since most
of the early book is introductions and setting up all the connections to
the Mercy Thompson stories, but there is some meat to it, including
fleshing out the mythology of werewolves in Briggs's world. (And some
passable descriptions of Montana wilds.) I'm not a big fan of how power
struggles and combat seem binary and very hierarchical, but that seems to
be the way that Briggs differentiates her werewolves, and it does form a
sharp contrast with Anna's ability. I think Omegas could have been even
more subtle than they are here, but the interplay between the
conflict-driven approach of everyone else and Anna's inherent calm can be
fun.

The biggest problem I had with Cry Wolf, apart from the general
predictability of the story and relationships, is that the hurt/comfort
angle never felt adequately resolved. Hurting a character very badly and
then having others offer comfort is a very common story technique that
brings with it some reader expectations in terms of emotional payoff. The
point at which the comfort finally works can be very empowering and very
affecting. I don't think Briggs hit the payoff as well as she could have.
Anna recovers, but she does so rather more easily than felt correct, and
without the emotional punch that I was waiting for. It seems odd to
complain about this sort of urban fantasy novel having too little
angst, and maybe I was just hoping for a story other than the one I was
reading, but I wanted a story that dug a bit deeper into Anna's psyche.

I think the best word for Cry Wolf is okay. If this is the story
you're in the mood for, it delivers that story. Briggs's werewolves are
mildly interesting, and the Omega concept is a good one, although not as
thoroughly or convincingly explored as I would have liked. I would have
preferred more intensity in the hurt/comfort plot and a more difficult
healing, but I still enjoyed the book.